Meta AI Faces Internal Rift Amid Aggressive Talent Poaching, $65B Investment Plans

Meta, under CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is aggressively pursuing dominance in artificial intelligence by launching the Meta Superintelligence Labs, led by Alexandr Wang of Scale AI, and planning unprecedented investments in AI infrastructure and talent acquisition. Zuckerberg envisions 2025 as a defining year for AI at Meta, with expenditures potentially reaching $65 billion, including a $29 billion capital raise for US AI data centers and a $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI. This push includes poaching top researchers from competitors like OpenAI, which has sparked tensions, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman criticizing Meta's recruitment tactics and warning of cultural challenges ahead. Meta's strategy marks a shift from earlier open-source commitments toward potentially more closed, proprietary AI development, a move that contrasts with Meta's top AI researcher Yann LeCun's advocacy for open-source AI. Additionally, Meta attempted a massive $32 billion acquisition of the stealth AI startup Safe Superintelligence Inc., co-founded by OpenAI's Ilya Sutskever, but was rejected, prompting Meta to double down on building its own capabilities. These moves underscore the intensifying competition for AI talent, technology, and dominance among leading tech companies.